THE FIRST TIME I WAS PUT TO SLEEP

The first time I was put to sleep
I remember it oh so well
I went from pain to none at all
To heaven straight from hell
My tormentors suddenly became my friends
We all floated as one in the sky
Looking down on beans and spuds and carrots
My brand new friends and I

It seemed so normal while I was there
Like it happened every day
To float above the street that was next to the field
There was nothing special to say
The balding man he introduced me
To the smiling man in white
Who suddenly floated into view
In front of me from the right

The second time I was put to sleep
The room it went very dark
I closed my eyes then they opened again
The silence was harsh and so stark
They only light that I could see
Was from the window so far away
But the light wouldn't shine into the dark room
I was distant from the bright day

Then to my indifferent eyes
The window became three
In a circle they moved in perfect step
Revolving in front of me
Against the empty silent black
The windows danced and moved
And then without warning at all
I was sitting back in the room

The third time I was put to sleep
I remember nothing at all
I was sleepy before I entered the room
And nothing more I recall
The journey there I remember well
It was the days before you walked
There were striplights and windows and corridors
And then green people who talked and talked

I remember their talking boring me
With nothing I wanted to know
I just felt very sleepy and wanted to sleep
And my thigh had a painful glow
Like some monstrous mosquito bite
It bulged to rounded peak
From whatever they injected before I got here
That made me so sleepy and weak

The fourth time I was put sleep
Was the least exciting of all
A feeling of cold travelling up my arm
There's nothing else to recall
No fields no floating no windows no dark
Not even a drifting before
I went I lay down and cold reached my elbow
Before I remembered no more

I was looking up at the featureless ceiling
Which changed its look in a flash
Then my loved one concerned looked down on me
My bloodied mouth made her face turn to ash
There was pain and discomfort that went unrelieved
By every concoction they gave
My only sincerest wish was return
To the oblivion from where I came

And none of these times was as good as the first
To that dreamfield I yearned to return
And in my attempts to get there myself
There were painful lessons to learn
I was lucky that I was not shamefully exposed
I was lucky I did not die
I learned at a cost that was luckily lower
That I could not return to the sky

But much later on I discovered a place
Both natural and good for the mind
And for an hour or two whenever I wish
I can leave my body behind
Sometimes I go to an alternate place
Sometimes it is simply dark
But the world I come back to is happy and good
Away from the tears of the past

I return more awake than I ever have been
And to a shocking realization
It's in fact them not me who have been put to sleep
All their lives they have never awakened
What they call the real world is only a dream
That lives only inside their minds
So I'm glad for the first time I was put to sleep
Now I'm one of the few who aren't blind